The New All American hero
by FacelessStranger
Summary: this story is about a version Superman more in keeping with the spirit of today.....feel free to read and review....yeah, and I don't own any of these characters or whatever........obviously......


There are some who would try and say otherwise but what I do is hard work. I protect freedom and prevent evildoers from harming the innocent. Actually, I really do considerably more than that. I serve as a symbol. When the masses see me rushing into action as Superman in my red and blue suit, they feel good inside. They feel inspired to attempt to do great things in their own petty little lives. They feel safe and secure. It seems to them as though all is right with the world. What's really amazing is that I accomplish all this in just one of the two identities I operate under. In the other identity, I have a job at a major newspaper and I use my connections there to try and stop the spread of the liberal biases that are poisoning so much of today's media.

Since what I do is such hard work and is so very dangerous, it is only natural that sometimes unpleasant occurrences which no one could have foreseen take place. It clearly isn't my fault but it happens sometimes and when it does I occasionally have to take what could be considered extreme measures to remedy the situation. It is unpleasant but I really have no choice.

At the moment, it just so happens that I am currently facing one of those unpleasant situations. My troubles started earlier today. I was on my way to visit Bruce to see why he wouldn't talk to me any more and I was flying over Gotham City. Every now and then, I was looking down at the streets below so I could see them gaze up at me in wonder. While doing so, I saw Penguin and Killer Croc robbing the Gotham Federal Bank with several of their henchmen. I decided to handle the situation myself. It was true that I wasn't that familiar with Gotham and didn't have much experience with this time of criminal but I figured that if Batman could handle it then I was over-qualified.

"Halt," I shouted dramatically as I floated down to hover in front of them,"Surrender now and maybe I won't be too rough with you." I found out then that Killer Croc was apparently insane because he chose to rip a lamppost out of the ground and hurl it at me instead of accepting my generous offer. Naturally, I was able to catch the lamppost and throw it back at him. However, Croc stepped out of the way and the lamppost hit the Penguin in the head. It soon became clear that the lamppost had hit the Penguin in such a way that it killed him. There was obviously no way I could have foreseen this but I knew that it would be held against me and I wasn't about to jeopardize all the important work that I do by letting word of this incident get out. I incinerated all the henchmen and the Penguin's corpse with my heat vision.

Killer Croc's hide was too tough to burn with my heat vision so I just snapped his neck. I wasn't sure what to do with the corpse of Killer Croc so I grabbed it and decided to fly it back to my apartment and hide it there for now.

"Hey there, Superman," I heard a voice behind me say abruptly,"who is that you've got there?" Obviously, I found that more than a little startling. I naturally reacted on an instinctive level as one is likely to do in such a situation. I swung around as quickly as I could and threw a punch at the spot that the voice came from. It turned out that it was Wonder Woman behind me and I had hit her right between the eyes hard enough to knock her head off her shoulders. At first, I felt bad about having done this but then I remembered that she probably wouldn't have understood about Penguin and Killer Croc which meant that it was probably just as well that I had killed her. I grabbed her body but her head eluded my grasp and fell to earth. Her blood obviously was flowing out of her neck and that didn't really worry me but it clearly wouldn't be good for me if someone were to find Wonder Woman's head so I flew down to retrieve it. Unfortunately, when I went to do so it turned out that the Flash happened to be patrolling that portion of the city looking for criminals at that point in time.

"Clark," the Flash said in a voice that oozed fear and confusion," what's going on???" The Flash didn't have skin that was too thick for my heat vision to burn so I incinerated him. Having to kill the Flash was unfortunate but it was clearly necessary because he would obviously have failed to understand why I had to commit those murders just now and the scandal that such a thing could cause if word of it got out could really end up ruining me and putting an end to all the great work that I do on a daily basis. Sometimes sacrifices must be made and this was clearly one of those times.

I brought the corpses of Wonder Woman and Killer Croc into my apartment and began working on trying to get them to fit into the hall closet. My wife, Louis, happened to come home as I was doing so.

"My God," Louis shrieked,"what on earth is happening here, Clark???" I tried to explain it all as best as she could. I let her know everything because she is supposed to support me in all that I do just like a dutiful wife should. However, she told me that she thought this was the most horrible thing she ever heard and demanded that I turn myself in. I tried to explain to her that I couldn't do that because it was important that all the good work that I do continue but she wouldn't listen. It seemed like all the members of the liberal media that she meets at work were having a horrible influence on her. At that point, I had no other option besides killing her so I incinerated Louis with my heat vision. I knew that it was clearly necessary to do so but it truly did seem like a shame do so at first. However, I soon realized it was probably all for the best since I'm Superman and I could get any woman I want. Besides, Louis has been really annoying me lately by always bugging me to talk about my 'feelings' more and other such sissy nonsense.

Louis managed to make a quick phone call before I killed her. I didn't really worry about that because it didn't seem like she had the phone long enough to do any real damage. In a short while, I would find out how wrong I was about that. As I was trying to break up the corpses so they would fit in the closet,I heard the sound of my front door being kicked down. I turned my head and saw Batman stepping through the front door in that ridiculously overly dramatic way of his.

"Clark," Bruce snapped at me,"this has gone too far! You need to be stopped. In a way, I suppose that I'm partly to blame. I've seen what you were becoming for a long time now. Trying to deal with you and get you to see reason, though, has becoming tiresome so suppose that I've just been hoping the problem will go away on its own. That ends now." Batman then pulled a very large lead box out from behind his back and took a large chunk of kryptonite out of it.

"You don't understand," I shouted as agony spread all throughout my body,"it isn't my fault that all this happened. Put that away and let me explain."

"That's not going to happen, Clark," Bruce snarled. It took all I had to do so but I kept stumbling forward. I actually managed to make it to Batman despite the insane amounts of pain I was feeling. Actually, I suppose that it wasn't surprising since I'm always struggling against great odds and succeeding.

I found myself standing there before the great Batman. He was definitely starting to look frightened but I suppose that can't be held against him. It is natural to be a little scared when one is facing Superman.

I've worked with Batman many times before. I knew he was good. The thing was, though, I knew that he was nowhere near as good as I was. Clearly, Bruce was going to ruin my career and there was only one way to prevent him from doing so. It became clear to me that I unfortunately had no choice but to kill Bruce because he was about to jeopardize all the great work I do protecting freedom and saving the innocent from evildoers.

My right arm shot out and dug into Batman's shoulder. I placed my left arm on his head and twisted until I heard his spine break. Batman collapsed to the ground. I quickly put the kryptonite back in the lead case and closed it. When I next checked Batman for a pulse, I was unable to find one. I grabbed his lifeless body and tossed it in the closet with the other corpses. As I was think about how best to dispose of them, I decided to take the Justice League rings off of Wonder Woman and Batman just in case. I set them both down on a nearby coffee table.

As I was working that out in my head, I decided upon sitting down in my favorite easy chair and watching some television. I was still a little woozy at that point but I had already managed to shake off most of the effects of the kryptonite by that point. They don't call me 'Superman' for nothing. On television, a reporter was going over the highlights of the Yankees and Dodgers game last night. I decided to wait until that was over to decide what to do with the corpses.

It seemed like that it was a good thing that I took the Justice League rings off of Batman and Wonder Woman because I soon found myself being teleported up to the Justice League Watchtower that orbited the earth. The rings belonging to Batman and Wonder Woman materialized near me a moment later.

"That is most odd," the Martian Manhunter said as he raised an eyebrow,"The two of them should have been brought up here as well. Clark, what would have happened with them? Did they take off their League rings for some reason?"

"Umm, I don't know," I said defensively,"I don't know anything about where they were or what they were doing."

"But how can that be," the Martian Manhunter said with confusion,"our sensors showed that they were within feet of you when we teleported you up here."

"Oh. How odd," I said with desperation," maybe that whole system is malfunctioning or something."

"No," the Martian Manhunter insisted," I just performed a diagnostic on it and everything seemed to be fine."

It occurred to me then that I was a more important symbol to the masses than all of these heroes put together. Clearly, my work is far too important for them to ruin it and that is exactly what they were going to do. With my superhuman speed, I rushed over and set off the watchtowers self- destruct sequence. I also smashed the override so no one would have a chance to use it to save themselves. Green Lantern I quickly killed with my heat vision because it seemed like he might be able to make it out okay after the self-destruct sequence and maybe even saving someone else along with him. After destroying the few escape crafts we had, I flew right out through the wall. Several league members and personnel ended up being sucked out into space. A few minutes after I made it safely away, the watchtower exploded and destroyed the entire Justice League.

When I made it back to my apartment, I got out a beer for myself and was about to see if they were still showing game highlights or some other quality program. Unfortunately, I saw that the little red light on my answering machine was beeping. I had gotten a call from Amanda Waller, a government operative who often dealt with incidents involving superhumans, about a distress call that Green Arrow had apparently managed to make right before the tower was destroyed.

That is why I am currently flying to the office of Amanda Waller. From my past dealings with her, I know her to be a decent person and a hard-working government employee. I would naturally prefer not to kill her but I don't seem to have much choice. It is necessary to kill her to ensure that I have a chance to continue the great work that I do protecting freedom and saving the innocent from the evildoers out there who would harm them.


End file.
